The Woodcarver's Secret (Samantha Sweet Mysteries) (24 page)

He walked to the open window and poured the contents of the bottle on
the ground outside. The bottle and cork went into the waste can. There would be
a fight over this.

He shuffled to the other bedroom and looked in on the children. Warren,
at seven, was indeed a sturdy lad. He performed well in school and loved to
read. Simone’s forehead felt hot to the touch again and he replaced the cloth
on her forehead with a fresh one dipped into water from the nearby basin.
Between these two, another boy had been born, seven months after their arrival
by ship. Poor little Alexander had not lived to his first birthday.

A mosquito buzzed through the room; Robert swatted it but heard the
ominous buzz of another. Tomorrow he would enquire about getting some netting
for their beds.

But in the morning, little Simone had become unconscious. The doctor
came and pronounced a coma without much hope of recovery; Susan retreated to
her room where she could be heard her rummaging about; Robert fed Warren his
breakfast and sent him out to play while he sat with his infant daughter until
she took her last breath.

* * *

Three graves on a hillside, rain pouring down and turning the
freshly-moved earth into a mire. Robert Smith stared at the two small mounds
and the larger one. Numb.

Perhaps Susan had been right—they should have left Panama and taken up
a normal American life in a normal place. She would have never been happy here
and he’d been too blinded by his own satisfaction with his work to notice until
it was too late. On the night Simone succumbed to her disease, Susan had
located her secret extra bottle of laudanum and downed the entire contents.
Where she’d kept it hidden, Robert did not know but he suspected the carved
wooden box on the top shelf of the clothes cupboard, the box he had bought from
old Sammy Avila.

He walked back to the house, a mile in the driving rain, uncaring that
his only suit was soaked through as he tried to calm his mind and make a plan
for the future. Only two things mattered to him now—his son and his work. An
unhappy wife had only added to the number of burdens a man had to bear. Two of
those encumbrances were now gone. In a peculiar, probably sick, way he found
this comforting. He felt freer, lighter.

At home, Warren sat in the living room bay window with a book. The
neighbor who had brought the boy home after the funeral was in the kitchen,
filling a kettle with water.

“He’s said nothing to me, Mr. Smith,” she said. “Just picked up his
book and went to that seat.”

“It’s his way,” Robert said. “I wouldn’t worry.”

“You’ll get chilled in those wet clothes. Change out of them and I’ll
have the tea on in a jiffy. Don’t want you catching the fever as well.”

No, we wouldn’t want that.

He dried his skin and put on fresh clothing. Drank the tea, responded
to the woman’s conversational attempts until she left. The boy had not moved
from his window seat but Robert watched long enough to assure himself that his
son was not upset; he did seem genuinely engrossed in the book. Robert wondered
how much attention Susan had really given the little ones. Her unhappiness had
run so very deep. Their son had found engagement and enthusiasm from another
source.

Robert stood beside his desk. “Reading anything good?” he asked as a
way to let Warren know he cared.

“An adventure story,” the boy answered with only a quick glance up.
“And you, Dad? Are you all right?”

Robert’s eyes welled up for the first time in days. He and his son were
so much alike; emotions stayed inside both of them.

“I’ll be all right. One day.”

Warren nodded and went back to his story. Robert sat behind the desk
and paged through his design sketches.

* * *

Warren Smith shrugged into his jacket, rolled up his set of blueprints
and headed for the kitchen. Rosa was pouring coffee—that deep Panama roast he
loved to savor—into his favorite cup.

“Off to work early,
mi
amor
,” she
said, pecking a kiss on his cheek.

“As always.” He grinned. “I don’t think Roberto is awake yet.”

“Ah, the way of the teenage boy. They sleep all day and want to be up
all night.”

“Fine with me,” Warren said, wrapping an arm around his wife’s waist
and pulling her close.

“There is no time,” she teased as he nuzzled her neck. “You have
meetings.”

“It’s hard to believe the Canal is nearly done. It’s taken my lifetime,
do you realize? My father started after the initial surveys were done, and
still … It has
still
been so many years.”

“Will your father be at the meeting today?”

“Oh yes, they cannot hold the man down even though he should probably
be retiring. He wants to see it through. I understand.”

She set a plate of toast on the table. “You and your father—very much
alike.”

“I don’t know what either of us will do once the Canal opens and our
jobs are finished. Stay on, I suppose. Well, I know you and I will. All of your
family is here and I have no one at all in America. Roberto—well, who can say?
He’s American by birth but aside from those few years at
Windlyn
,
he’s lived the Panamanian life. He may decide to stay too. The Canal will
provide jobs of some sort … forever, I suppose.”

“Our son did not seem to care much for boarding school in America,” she
said with a regretful expression. “He never confided whether the boys shunned
him or picked on him. I suppose his decisions about his adult life will tell us
something.”

“It won’t be that long.” Warren brushed the toast crumbs from his hands
and picked up the roll of blueprints. “Anyway, I’m off for Gatun. See you
later.”

His father joined him, along with three Army engineers, for the short
train ride to the Gatun Dam. By noon they had reviewed the blueprints and
inspected the latest work to be certain that it met their specifications. The
other three set off for the nearby canteen where lunch was served each day for
the workers, while Warren and Robert held back to recheck one last item.

“An amazing feat, I have to say.” Robert Smith stared over the man-made
lake where ships would wait after negotiating the first set of locks that
raised them a hundred meters above sea level, before sailing to the western set
that would lower them to the Pacific. “I do swear, son, there were times it
looked as if it would never happen. The French scandal, the opposing viewpoints
about straight-cut versus the locks …” He paused—his son knew he’d been on the
side of installing locks right from the start. “… the endless bureaucracy.
Theodore Roosevelt had vision for this, but the Congress and the Army could not
keep their fingers out of it. I thought they would never get it sorted out.”

Warren followed his father’s gaze, imagining a day when dozens of ships
would use the Canal. “So sad about all the losses along the way.”

“Tens of thousands to malaria alone, until they figured out that the
mosquitos were behind it all.” He had long since accepted the sad fact that two
of his children had succumbed to the disease and that it may have been a factor
in Susan’s death as well. As there was no way to undo those tragic events,
Robert had taken the practical stance: move on.

“Not to mention the construction accidents. We’ve learned a great deal,
haven’t we?”

Robert nodded, his gaze still far away.

“We’d better get inside before the food is all gone,” Warren finally
said. “I’m starving.”

“Yes, and tell me what Roberto is up to these days. I haven’t seen the
boy in a few weeks.” They began walking.

“I have a hard time reading him. His friends consist of the other Canal
families’ sons. The other day two of them were at the house, listening to
something on the wireless. I heard Johnny Jamison say something about enlisting
in the Army. There’s a bit of tension going on in Europe, as I understand it.”

Robert held the door to the mess hall open for his son. “I don’t like
what I’m hearing.”

“I don’t either. I don’t want to think of America becoming tangled up
in all that. I doubt it will happen—I hope it won’t.” Warren accepted a metal
tray of meat and potatoes from the server, distracted by his thoughts. It was
the significant difference between himself and his son—while Warren had always
kept to himself and studied, Roberto was a follow-the-crowd sort. He was likely
to do whatever his friends did.

“Our boy is nearing that age,” Robert said as they took seats at the
end of a long table. “He’ll be old enough to enlist if he chooses.”

Warren thought of the rumblings about that German Kaiser in Europe.
Suddenly his hunger vanished.

Chapter 8

A Field Trip

Aurora Potts walked away from the post office staring at the envelope
she’d just received. Smith? she thought. What Smith is this? The paper carried
a faint musty smell, explained by the foreign stamps and Panama return address.
There is one way to find out, she chided herself. Simply open the thing.

She lifted the hem of her skirt as she ascended the steps to her office
building. The red brick structure had changed little on the outside, with
The Vongraf Foundation
neatly lettered
on a white sign near the door, but Aurora was proud of the changes she had
wrought within these walls since accepting the directorship five years ago.
Science was a man’s world, by and large, but she was one of the few with a
background in both science and in business, not to mention connections in
academia. She could study specimens under a microscope with the best of them,
but she could also track the Foundation’s financial progress and knew whom to
tap for donations, whose trust fund was well enough endowed to spare the money
to support Vongraf’s work.

Her secretary handed her a stack of correspondence. “For your
signature, Miss Potts,” Charles said.

She thanked him and walked through the laboratory, taking quick stock
of the projects currently underway, before stepping into her private office.
Through the large windows she had installed the previous year—no more sitting
behind a closed door wondering what was happening in the lab—she admired the
new equipment, the finest microscopes with German lenses and the small
centrifuge that was the pride of the lab. Along the walls, neat racks of
bottles held the chemical compounds they needed for testing. Of course, many of
the requests involved more detective work than chemistry, and The Vongraf
handled them all. Three scientists (besides herself) and two lab assistants
kept the place in top form.

She removed her jacket and hat, placing them on the rack near the door,
then took her seat behind the simple wooden desk. Charles had neatly organized
the letters for her signature, but the piece that drew her attention was the
letter from her personal mailbox. She picked up her pearl-handled letter opener
and slit the envelope.

A single page of quality cream paper came out, along with a photograph
printed on stiff paperboard.

Dear Miss Potts,

We have never met, but I
believe you may remember my son, Roberto, from
Windlyn
.
He mentioned you as one of his favorite teachers. We recently saw the news of
your leaving the academic world (sorry, news reaches us slowly here in Panama),
and taking a position in which you study unexplained phenomena. It is in this
regard that I am writing to you today.

My family is in possession of
an artifact that puzzles me and I hope it might be of interest to you. This
wooden box came into my grandfather’s possession more than fifty years ago and
the story that went along with it was that the box had performed several
miracles. This would have been in the Yucatan region of Mexico. In one event,
it is said that a woman stranded at sea was saved by holding to the box and
that it guided her ashore. I know this sounds vaguely plausible, but if you saw
the box, a mere twelve inches in length, you would question this claim, as I
have over the years.

In later times there were
other stories—of people being healed when it was thought there was no hope, of
the box changing its appearance seemingly at the mere touch of someone’s hand.
I can tell you of these events in greater detail, although I must admit that I
have never experienced it myself.

If a study of the box would be
of interest to you and your Foundation’s work, please let me know and inform me
of the best manner in which to get it to you. Thank you for indulging the whims
of an old man.

I remain, Yours truly,

Warren Smith

Aurora set the letter aside and stared at the photograph. A wooden box
sat on a table and the contrast and lighting were not good, the sepia tones
blending too much for great clarity. She carried the photograph to the one
exterior window where sunshine warmed the room. In the stronger light she
studied the picture and felt her heart quicken. She had heard rumors of a box
like this.

She dropped the photograph on her desk and picked up Mr. Smith’s letter,
bustling past the work tables in the lab and heading toward her secretary’s
desk.

“Charles, respond to this gentleman’s request in the affirmative. Tell
him to securely pack the item for mailing and give him our address.”

“Certainly, Miss Potts.” He pulled a sheet of the Foundation’s
letterhead from his drawer and inserted it into his typewriting machine.

“We shall hope this is not just another bendable spoon,” she said.

He smiled at that. Their work was filled with investigations into cheap
parlor tricks and hucksters whose games bilked people out of their money while
trying to make them believe in the magical. Whenever that was the case—a
shyster taking money for performing his or her feats—The Vongraf Foundation was
honor bound to turn their findings over to the police.

Aurora’s thoughts churned as she walked back to her office. Somehow,
Smith’s story did not have that feel to it. A wooden box with healing powers.
Stories of such a thing had floated about during her years in college and she
had begun taking notes even that far back. Somewhere, here … She opened a
drawer in the tall wooden filing cabinet behind her desk. Yes. She had kept the
notes.

A sketch sat at the top of the pages. Someone had described such a box,
had made this drawing. As she recalled, it was a young man whose ancestors from
Ireland had spoken of it. At the time, Aurora had marked it up as just one of
those Irish folktales, along with leprechauns and pots of gold. The boy, who
had been somewhat sweet on her, offering to buy her a coffee now and then,
might have simply been telling tales to keep her attention. But something about
the story he told or the fact that the sketch was so detailed, something had
told her to keep it. And now she had photographic evidence of a box that looked
very similar.

She paged through the papers in the folder, a collection of notes made
over time, refreshing her memory. One handwritten note stood out. At the top
were three simple letters: OSM. She was familiar with them in name only, a
highly secretive organization, a rival to The Vongraf, really. She had written
this note the first time she heard of them and her notations reminded her that
OSM had shown an inordinate interest in another artifact, some sort of
religious icon. She had jotted her thoughts at the time, that this organization
investigated religious miracles, although now she could not recall where she’d
gotten that idea. The note was brief, without enough information to form any
sort of conclusion. It must have related to the Irish box, though. Why else
would she have filed it in this particular folder?

She stared at the photograph once more. How had such a box traveled
from Ireland to Mexico to Panama? She read the other notes in the folder. One
account told of the existence of other boxes, including one whose
characteristics could change—good or bad—according to the person holding it.
That seemed even more farfetched than Smith’s claims. Of course, anything was
possible and her scientific side told her to make no judgments, to form no opinion,
until the facts were in evidence.

The day the package from Panama arrived, Aurora was out at a
fundraising luncheon in nearby Washington. It had been a long day and she’d
been tempted to go straight home, but aside from her cat, Mittens, no one waited
for her there. The lab was always an exciting place. Plus, there might be
messages, telephone calls to return.

Charles had gone home to his young wife and most of the staff had left,
as well. One of the senior scientists stood at the worktable, a dour older man
named William whose opposition to having a woman as his boss was well known.
Aurora greeted him politely but did not linger to chat.

On her desk sat a package wrapped in brown paper and tied with many
rounds of twine. The sight of Panamanian postage stamps made her heart quicken.
She pulled scissors from her drawer and quickly cut loose the secure wrappings.

The box sat there, a benign little object of carved wood, small stones
and drab, dark stain. It was certainly not an example of fine art. An educated
guess was that it had been made by a tradesman of European descent and was
probably quite old. It was a bit smaller than she had expected. Now she saw
what Warren Smith meant in his skepticism over this item having the mass to
keep a grown woman afloat in water and to direct her safely to the shore. She
took measurements of its dimensions, reminding herself not to form an opinion
at this early stage.

William put on his street coat and left without a word, which was just
as well. Aurora was eager to work on the box but didn’t especially want his
observations. She carried the item to one of the lab tables and studied it
carefully. Inside the lid there were faint traces of some sort of lettering or
characters, unreadable now. She used onionskin paper and did a light rubbing
but only scattered marks revealed themselves, no words. The piece had obviously
been used and handled a great deal during its history.

She wanted to examine the molecular structure under the microscope but
would have to take a sample of the wood first. Preparation involved using
several chemicals and a stain, and if the box truly was ancient, it would not
do to ruin it; she sliced a few centimeters of wood from one of the inner edges
then pulled several bottles from the supply on the shelves above.

An hour later she had the tiny sample under her lens. She had seen this
condition before, although not in a long time. To be certain that her
conclusion was valid she located a book among the reference texts in their
small library and consulted.

The molecular structure indicated that the wood had, indeed, been
subjected to a massive jolt of electricity—most likely, the tree from which it
was carved had been struck by lightning. Interesting, but certainly not proof
that any supernatural powers were conveyed by it. Warren Smith had said that
the box changed color when handled by certain people; however, obviously not
every person got this reaction from it or Aurora herself would have immediately
seen the result. He told her it held certain healing properties; she thought of
a simple way to test for this. She held the box closely in both hands for ten
minutes, then touched her index finger to a small cut on her left hand. She saw
no reaction at all.

She raised the microscope’s lens and began a detailed study of the
surfaces, inside and out. She discovered that the box had once held paper made
from high quality cotton; it also bore traces of sea sand, wax crayons and a
type of clay found in the deserts of the Southwest. Minuscule granules of salt
verified Smith’s story that the box had once floated in the ocean. If only she
could find someone whose handling would bring about the reaction he had
described.

She stood up and stretched her aching neck and shoulders. The clock on
the wall beside her office door chimed and Aurora was shocked to see that the
hour was three-thirty in the morning. Mittens would be anxious and hungry,
although this certainly was not the first time Aurora had worked nearly through
the night. How fortunate that the old building had been wired for electric
lights a few years ago. She gathered the bottles and tools, leaving her work
area neat, and carried the box to her desk where she locked it safely away in a
drawer.

Expecting to sleep until midmorning, Aurora was surprised to find
herself wide awake at eight o’clock. A quick toilette then she pulled on one of
her simple work dresses and walked the four blocks to the Foundation. She had
awakened with an idea.

Rather than making an announcement, she made her way quietly among the
staff, asking each person in turn to hold the wooden box for a few minutes and
offer an opinion as to its age and origin. The box showed no reaction, nor did
its handlers, until she brought it to Charles. Within moments after he took the
item she noticed that the wood began to lighten and take on a prettier, golden
appearance.

Her secretary stared at it. “It’s becoming warm!”

So Smith’s story did have some validity.

“Do you feel any differently?” she asked.

“Not especially.”

“Thank you. What you have noticed is very helpful.”

She took the box back to her office and began to write down her
findings for a report to Warren Smith. When she left for lunch she handed the
notes to Charles, whose desk looked remarkably clear for so early in the day.
He already had fresh paper in his typewriter. He began to strike the keys and
Aurora paused, startled at how quickly he was typing the words.

“I plan to return in an hour or so,” she told him.

“I will have your letter ready.”

Out on the street, she was more determined than ever to conduct one
final test with the box. She stepped in front of a woman who was pushing a baby
in a pram and introduced herself.

“I wonder if you would mind holding this box for a moment or two. It’s
in the name of science.”